catch up
English
Alternative forms
Verb
catch up (third-person singular simple present catches up, present participle catching up, simple past and past participle caught up)
- (transitive) To pick up suddenly.
- 1913, Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, chapter 3
- Oscar stopped the horses and waved to Carl, who caught up his hat and ran through the melon patch to join them.
- 1913, Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, chapter 3
- (transitive) To entangle.
- The speaker wires have got caught up with the wires from the lights.
- (intransitive) To be brought up to date with news.
- I hadn't seen her for so long. It was great to catch up.
- (transitive) To bring (someone) up to date with the news.
- After Alice's vacation, her boss caught her up on policy changes.
- (transitive, intransitive) To reach something that had been ahead.
- Rose was three seconds behind, but managed to catch up with the race leader and eventually won.
- I'll go ahead and you can catch me up later.
- (intransitive) To compensate for or make up a deficiency.
- (intransitive) To finally reach something inevitable.
- 2012 June 17, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Homer’s Triple Bypass” (season 4, episode 11; originally aired 12/17/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club[1]:
- The episode begins with a lifetime of junk food, beer and no exercise catching up with Homer in the form of painful heart contractions.
Translations
To pick up suddenly
To entangle
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To be brought up to date with news
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To bring someone else up to date with the news
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To reach something that had been ahead
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To compensate for or make up a deficiency
To finally reach something inevitable
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked: "reach a point"
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked: "find out after the event"
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Noun
catch up (countable and uncountable, plural catch ups)
- An act of catching up or attempting to catch up.
- An amount, a thing, or a receipt or repetition of information that enables one to catch up.
Categories:
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English phrasal verbs
- English phrasal verbs formed with "up"
- English multiword terms
- English transitive verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- English terms with quotations
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English phrasal nouns
- English phrasal verbs with particle (up)